Two Prakrit Versions of Manipati Charitra

Author(s): R Williams
Publisher: Royal Asiatic Society

Page 25

THE MAŅIPATI-CARITA OF HARIBHADRA
Nearly all the MSS. contain in verse 643 an ascription of this work to Haribhadra Sūri and in verse 645 (nayaņa-muņi-rudde samkhe Vikkama-samvaccharammi) an indication of the date of compilation.-Samvat 1172. This latter is confirmed in the Berlin MS. noticed by Schubring by the words Vikramāditya thi samvatsara samsyā etalē sam. 1172 vaci chë. -- Klatta following Peterson took the work to be that of the famous Haribhadra but also listed no less than eight others of the same name, of whom for reasons of date only one could be equated with the Haribhadra Sūri of verse 643. The better known Haribhadra, accepted as the author inter alia of numerous commentaries on canonical texts is generally assumed to have flourished in the eighth century. A recent synoptic list of Jaina works,3 based, it seems, largely on the work of M. D. Desai, assigns the Manipati-caritra to Haribhadra Sūri, pupil of Jinadeva Upādhyāya of the BỊhad Gaccha, who composed commentaries on the Karma-grantha (Sam. 1172), on the Praśamarati (Sam. 1185) and the Kșetra-samāsa, but his identification with the author of the MPCH however probable seems to rest only on the coincidence of date.
Prof. F. Belloni-Filippi of Pisa published the text of the nine verses which make up the Carabhadī-kahā4 prefacing them with a study of other versions of this fable, and, a few years later, 5 the first eighty-two verses of the work together with a brief note on its date and authorship. The complete poem is also said to have been printed in the Hemacandra Grantha-mālā, Ahmedabad.
In verse 643 the MPCH is described as excerpted from a puvva-cariya which may with every probability be assumed to have been the anonymous Prakrit Manipati-carita, but there are verbal and other correspondences with the MPCJ which make it clear that Haribhadra must also have been familiar with the work of Jambunāga. Here are a few examples :
1 Peterson : First Report, p. 128, No. 314. 2 Klatt: Specimen of a Jaina Onomasticon Leipzig, 1892, p. 7. 3 Fattehcand Belāni : Jaina grantha aur granthakār, Benares 1946. • Rivista degli Studii Orientali, vol. IV (1911-12), pp. 1015-20.
RSO, vol. VII (1916), pp. 365-378. • M. D. Desai: Jaina sahitya no samkşipta itihāsa, Bombay 1933, p. 250.
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